Winchester 9mm ammo problem

[elktrout]

I recently purchased a slightly used HK VP9SK at my LGS for a song. I cleaned it well and lubed it appropriately. Today, I shot Winchester white box 115 grain ammo, Winchester NATO 9mm 124 grain ammo, Winchester USA Defense 124 grain +P, and some old Remington Golden Saber 124 grain +P loads. All of it was factory new when purchased.

The gun performed flawlessly until part way through the third magazine of the white box rounds, when it suddenly would not go into battery. I removed the magazine and cleared the round from the chamber. It looked fine. I later loaded this one round alone in a magazine and tried it. Again, it fed but would not go into battery.

I set it aside and burned through a bunch more ammo without a problem. Once home, I did my best with my caliper to measure the round. The diameter seemed to match other factory rounds I had. But, when I measured the case length, it was .762 to .768, depending on that point in the circumference of the case. I measured a different white box 115 round, and it was .748. My Hornady manual shows the case length should be .754 inches. I am glad I did not force the round into battery and make a high pressure situation.

Have any of you had this happen with Winchester factory loads?

 

[epags]

Are you talking about Winchester Ranger Law Enforcement Ammunition, NATO 9mm 124gr. Full Metal Jacket? Its in a 'gold/brown" box.

 

[elktrout]

It is in a white box. Winchester 9mm NATO 124 grain full metal jacket, target load. The box says the velocity is 1140 fps. It is not law enforcement or +P.

 

[elktrout]

Edited the OP. After examining the over length round again, it was one of the white box rounds.

 

[triplebike]

Had the exact same problem with the exact same ammo. A fellow range member also mentioned to me that he had the exact same problem with the exact same ammo. We both purchased the white box ammo from the range. I never had or ever will purchase WWB ammo again.

 

[L-2]

I can't specifically recall a Winchester-brand round specifically out of spec, but do recall one of my department Ranger Masters speaking ill of the Winchester brand. I just don't remember the particular problem(s). My department eventually switched to the Federal-brand after my retirement. My department went through several hundreds of thousands of rounds, probably even in the millions of rounds while I was employed there. I seem to recall this particular Range Master saying something negative regarding some of its sniper rounds, probably .308 or 7.62x51 being out-of-spec in some fashion.

I do have a .357SIG round, Federal-brand, which has its bullet/projectile inverted in the casing. There were 49 others rounds perfectly fine in that box, except for this one round. Due to the inverted bullet, the round could not be chambered in the Glock 31 Gen3 which is the gun for which I bought the ammo.

Presently, I'm going through a case of Blazer-brand aluminum cased 9mm ammo, which is exhibiting ~2% with failures to eject, possibly due to under-charged/under-strength ammo.

I believe any brand of ammo could have an occasional out-of-spec round included in the box or case of ammo. I typically buy ammo by the case. Some folks, I've read, will "plunk test" each round into one's barrel, prior to loading the rounds into magazines. I don't do this, but do practice my tap, rack, bang procedure as needed.

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

I've avoided 9mm WWB ever since they introduced that abominable Winclean powder. Shoots dirty, weak loads, inconsistent ignition.....
That said, I never saw dimensional issues back in the day.

I HAVE seen recent Winchester rimfires that were out of spec so badly that they would not chamber in some of my .22s and caused difficult extraction in others.

 

[kcofohio]

I recently purchased a slightly used HK VP9SK at my LGS for a song. I cleaned it well and lubed it appropriately. Today, I shot Winchester white box 115 grain ammo, Winchester NATO 9mm 124 grain ammo, Winchester USA Defense 124 grain +P, and some old Remington Golden Saber 124 grain +P loads. All of it was factory new when purchased.

The gun performed flawlessly until part way through the third magazine of the white box rounds, when it suddenly would not go into battery. I removed the magazine and cleared the round from the chamber. It looked fine. I later loaded this one round alone in a magazine and tried it. Again, it fed but would not go into battery.

I set it aside and burned through a bunch more ammo without a problem. Once home, I did my best with my caliper to measure the round. The diameter seemed to match other factory rounds I had. But, when I measured the case length, it was .762 to .768, depending on that point in the circumference of the case. I measured a different white box 115 round, and it was .748. My Hornady manual shows the case length should be .754 inches. I am glad I did not force the round into battery and make a high pressure situation.

Have any of you had this happen with Winchester factory loads?

Do you still have the box that has the lot number on it? I would contact Winchester, maybe they have other complaints with the same lot.

 

[Shanvanvocht]

I have had recurring problems with Winchester loaded (both Winchester and Browning branded) 9mm 124gr. At least one or two rounds per box fail to fire after repeated striker hits. The primers all show normal indent and I have frequently had the guy on the next firing point try the round in a different weapon with the same results.

 

[NMexJim]

 

[alfsauve]

Over the Wuhan flu and ammo unavailability period, I've noticed QC tick slightly downward. I had 3 squibs out of a lot of 1,000 top end name ammo. I've had other failures over the last couple of years that I have not had before. Anyway one can hope that with the worst of the "panic" behind us QC will tick back up.

Which brings up my new favorite (not) pastime of chamber checking all ammo before I go to the range. Factory as well as reloads.

 

[InTheSwamp]

My old HK45 had its first and second FTF at around 12K rounds on WWB. Before that, I shot everything between my mild reloads and very HOT +P ammo without issues.
I pulled the bullets and both cases were about 0.915".
As reliable as that pistol is, it was designed for NATO ammunition and those two were way above the 0.898 spec. Lousiest ammo I ever shot.

 

[.455_Hunter]

Interesting- Winchester 9mm NATO is my favorite 9mm load, and I have never experienced any issues with it.

 

[InTheSwamp]

Interesting- Winchester 9mm NATO is my favorite 9mm load, and I have never experienced any issues with it.

WWB is an umbrella term we use for all the different variants sold inside a white box. The old Walmart one (the one I had the issues with) is very inconsistent in the accuracy and reliability departments.

 

[elktrout]

I still have some rounds left in the box from which I was shooting yesterday. I mark all boxes of factory ammo I buy with the date of purchase. I date all boxes of handholds when I load them. This WWB was dated April 2022.

I think, going forward, I will chamber check my ammo before heading to the range.

 

[trigger puller]

I recently purchased a slightly used HK VP9SK at my LGS for a song. I cleaned it well and lubed it appropriately. Today, I shot Winchester white box 115 grain ammo, Winchester NATO 9mm 124 grain ammo, Winchester USA Defense 124 grain +P, and some old Remington Golden Saber 124 grain +P loads. All of it was factory new when purchased.

The gun performed flawlessly until part way through the third magazine of the white box rounds, when it suddenly would not go into battery. I removed the magazine and cleared the round from the chamber. It looked fine. I later loaded this one round alone in a magazine and tried it. Again, it fed but would not go into battery.

I set it aside and burned through a bunch more ammo without a problem. Once home, I did my best with my caliper to measure the round. The diameter seemed to match other factory rounds I had. But, when I measured the case length, it was .762 to .768, depending on that point in the circumference of the case. I measured a different white box 115 round, and it was .748. My Hornady manual shows the case length should be .754 inches. I am glad I did not force the round into battery and make a high pressure situation.

Have any of you had this happen with Winchester factory loads?

I've never had a problem with WWB ammo. I've shot it and Blazer and 10-15 other brands of "cheap" range ammo, as well as steel cased +p and Hornady jacketed HPs. I've never had a malfunction. But I've only been shooting Glocks. 17 gen 4, 19 gen 3, 43x, and 43x mos . My 17 has over 10k rounds of "cheap" range ammo and probably 1k of JHP "carry" ammo

 

[fastbolt]

Back in the early 2000's I came across 2 rounds in a box of Winchester 180gr .40 S&W RA40180HP that had overly long trimmed cases. Neither round wound allow the slide/barrel to go forward into battery in a couple of .40's. Wasn't easily seen until they were takne back to the armory bench and inspected. I discovered this during some range drills. This was the same ammo line (LE product BTW) that I'd been using without problem for some time (and continued to use without problems, afterward).

A few years later one of our guys doing a qual session came across a round of Remington 230gr .45 Golden Sabre the same problem. The case was trimmed too long to allow his gun to go into battery. We probably had 50K rounds of that load in inventory at the time, but that was the only round to exhibit that problem, and we used the same load (more pallets delivered) for quite a while afterward. Interestingly enough, that happened at the same time I'd recently read a gun magazine article where the author had experienced the same problem with a single round of the same load. What are the chances? Go figure.

As much as we'd all like to think our ammo is lovingly made by attentive and skilled ammo elves, the big names are churning it out in computer-controlled production lines that can produce up to 1 millions rounds every 24hrs. Then, consider that some of the components (like brass cases) for the budget lines might not benefit from the same level of QC as the more expensive lines. Things can happen.

This is one of the reasons a lot of firearms instructors no longer commonly teach the technique of hitting the back of the slide when a pistol doesn't go fully forward into battery, but instead teach to rapidly (roll)rack the slide to get the (whatever) problematic round cleared and replaced with a fresh one. The round that wouldn't go into battery can be inspected at leisure afterward ... or become part of the evidence recovered at the scene of a LE shooting investigation.

Of course, it's also important at the range to make sure the reason the slide/barrel didn't go into battery was because the bullet from a short-load(squib) wasn't lodged in the bore close enough to the chamber to prevent another round from chambering.

 

[Pat Riot]

Years ago I bought a 500 round case of WWB .45 ACP. I had lots of issues with it. I vowed “Never Again”!
During “The Silliness” I broke my vow and bought 250 rounds of 9mm 115 grain WWB. I had a few rounds that misfired. They showed solid primer strikes but wouldn’t fire.
When I moved to WV I found a great price on Winchester USA 9mm 115 grain FMJ in the red, white and blue box. After buying and shooting up a couple of hundred rounds of it with no issues a guy at the range said it was just WWB repackaged.
I kind of doubt that.
Also, I bought some Herter’s ammo at Bass Pro Shops. I bought 9mm 115 grain FMJ. It has Winchester head stamps on the cases. I asked a couple of the BPS guys if they knew if the Herter’s 9mm is just repackaged Winchester ammo. They didn’t know.
All the rounds of the Winchester USA and the Herter’s ammo fired without issue and the ammo turned out to be pretty accurate stuff for bulk type target ammo.

Here are some photos I took of the ammo.

 

[Riomouse911]

Our office shot WWB by the literal SUV load every year, we had occasional issues with that ammo over the 16 years I handled ammo orders/range duties.

I still shoot a bunch of 115/124 fmj 9mm every year, and have not had any more issues recently that I can recall.

But it happens, especially with bulk/bargain ammo like WWB that is being cranked out by the truckloads to fill orders.

Stay safe.

 

[sparkyv]

This ammo is cheap range fodder. I had the exact same issue this week with this same Winchester white box 115 grain ammo. Cheap ammo, poor QC. Though I was well aware of the low quality, I bought this ammo for a few noobies I was treating to a beginners range session. Did I mention that it's cheap and usually goes "bang"? The round that failed to go fully into battery failed to seat in my cartridge gauge. The case was several thou too long, and the crimp was excessive. I also noticed mixed headstamp brass, WIN and WMA, the primers of latter seemed to be crimped. You pays yer monies, and you take yer chances!

Winchester white box 115 grain ammo,

Had the exact same problem with the exact same ammo. A fellow range member also mentioned to me that he had the exact same problem with the exact same ammo. We both purchased the white box ammo from the range. I never had or ever will purchase WWB ammo again.

 

[sparkyv]

I HAVE seen recent Winchester rimfires that were out of spec so badly that they would not chamber in some of my .22s and caused difficult extraction in others.

 

[Riomouse911]

I just tried some Winchester produced-Browning branded .22 LR HP ammo in some rimfire revolvers. Those seemed oversized, as the live cartridges barely seated and fired cases did not want to easily eject in any of the three guns I was shooting.

Stay safe.

 

[LiveLife]

I just tried some Winchester produced-Browning branded .22 LR HP ammo in some rimfire revolvers. Those seemed oversized, as the live cartridges barely seated and fired cases did not want to easily eject in any of the three guns I was shooting.

And you didn't have same problem with other brand ammunition?

 

[Riomouse911]

I shot CCI SV, Aguila Super Extra HP, Norma Tac-22, Browning HP, Federal bulk 325-pack and some Magtech solid. Only the Browning ammo had this sticky insert/extract issue in my DW and S&W Models 17 and new 617. I had to literally tap the extractor rod with a screwdriver handle to get them out. This brand of ammo is also the only ones to choke my Browning auto rifle and my Ruger Mk IV.

The 500 I bought have been a disappointment, to say the least. Luckily, I am almost done with them.

Stay safe

And you didn't have same problem with other brand ammunition

 

[hemiram]

I have a jar of "bad" 9mm rounds that are either a bit too long, or have weirdly deformed cases. Almost all of them are 115gr Win White Box. Why I keep them, I don't know.